Renewable energy consumption should be increased to reduce CO2 emissions. There are politically agreed programs to subsidize such power production with windmills. Wood pellet burners and solar energy stations are also becoming more usual. However, solar energy is poorly suited for electricity production at higher latitudes because electricity production drastically is at the lowest while the need is at its peak during winter months. Instead, thermal solar energy panels have a higher efficiency that solar photovoltaic panels do. Thermal solar panels also outperform electricity producing solar panels with economic and efficient energy storage.
Solar energy use is not a new invention. It is believed that Archimedes used as a weapon a “burning glass” to project a burning beam on invading Roman fleet. Modern large solar power plants concentrate sunlight from a field of heliostats that surround a solar power tower in which water or molten salt is heated. In such applications, a heat collector is elevated high up in a tower so that solar energy or insolation more accurately (heat flux from sun shine) can be reflected from a large area to the heat collector. Solar towers require very large insolation reflection field in comparison to the collector in order to gain high temperatures needed for economically sufficient efficiency. Moreover, in solar energy plants, electric surges caused by lightning may break the heliostats and pumps used for transfer of heat transfer medium, or expensive surge protection is required. Large solar power plants have transformers for connecting to a grid at high voltages (tens of kilovolts or even hundreds of kilovolts). Then, lightning surges travelling kilometers on the power lines are respectively downscaled by the transformers so that the surge voltages may remain at safe levels. However, smaller units without transformers e.g. at rooftops of commercial buildings are easily broken by surge voltages if not particularly surge protected.
Recently, very small scale thermal solar panels have been installed at small sites as well, even on roofs of detached houses. On the roofs, the installations are typically made along a roof surface. Such panels are yet relatively inefficient because they are not at a right angle towards the sun when the sun shines with the highest intensity. Moreover, the panels on the roof are typically exposed to accruing snow, ice and dirt which reduce their efficiency or require continuous maintenance. There are also solar panels installed on sun trackers that keep the solar panels directed towards the sun. However, in case of thermal solar panels, tracker mounted panels would require repeated flexing of heat transfer medium pipes or hoses. Thermal solar panels are also typically far heavier than photovoltaic (PV) panels that produce electricity, which sets particular mechanical requirements to use of thermal solar panels with a sun tracker mechanism.
The aspects of the present disclosure advantageously avoid or mitigate problems present in the existing solar energy harvesting systems, especially in small scale solar energy harvesting systems. Another aspect of the present disclosure advantageously provides a new technical alternative for solar energy harvesting.